Divisibility Rules

Divisibility Math Tricks to Learn the Facts (Divisibility)

More and more in my teaching career, I see that we often are able to enhance student learning in mathematics with tricks. There are many tricks to teach children divisibility in mathematics. Some tricks that I used to use in my classroom are listed here. If you know of some that I may have missed, drop into the forum and let everyone know. I'll add them to this list as I see them.

Dividing by 2

  1. All even numbers are divisible by 2. E.g., all numbers ending in 0,2,4,6 or 8.

Dividing by 3

  1. Add up all the digits in the number.
  2. Find out what the sum is. If the sum is divisible by 3, so is the number
  3. For example: 12123 (1+2+1+2+3=9) 9 is divisible by 3, therefore 12123 is too!

Dividing by 4

  1. Are the last two digits in your number divisible by 4? (Last Three Digits incase of 8)
  2. If so, the number is too!
  3. For example: 358912 ends in 12 which is divisible by 4, thus so is 358912.

Dividing by 5

  1. Numbers ending in a 5 or a 0 are always divisible by 5.

Dividing by 6

  1. If the Number is divisible by 2 and 3 it is divisible by 6 also.

Dividing by 7 (2 Tests)

• Take the last digit in a number.
• Double and subtract the last digit in your number from the rest of the digits.
• Repeat the process for larger numbers.
• Example: 357 (Double the 7 to get 14. Subtract 14 from 35 to get 21 which is divisible by 7 and we can now say that 357 is divisible by 7.

  NEXT TEST
• Take the number and multiply each digit beginning on the right hand side (ones) by 1, 3, 2, 6, 4, 5. Repeat this sequence as necessary
• Add the products.
• If the sum is divisible by 7 - so is your number.
• Example: Is 2016 divisible by 7?
• 6(1) + 1(3) + 0(2) + 2(6) = 21
• 21 is divisible by 7 and we can now say that 2016 is also divisible by 7.

Dividing by 8

  1. This one's not as easy, if the last 3 digits are divisible by 8, so is the entire... [continues]

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